by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Having carried the torch for weirdo punk and experimental industrial for nearly two decades, it would have been entirely understandable if Buck Gooter had called it a day after the tragic passing of the band’s Terry Turtle, their enigmatic guitarist. Then again, stopping the project would seem to go against everything that has made Buck Gooter the DIY dynasty they are, and if anything, Billy Brett’s desire to honor his lifelong friend’s wishes to “keep on playing my music” will only drive the project further into the future. Case in point, Ghost Brain, the band’s upcoming album, due out April 4th, on Terry Turtle’s 71st birthday. Brett recorded the album together with Oliver Ackermann (A Place To Bury Strangers), who handled production and played on most of the songs. Gone but never forgotten, Terry Turtle is sampled on every track, his presence remaining an integral part of Buck Gooter, as if anyone would have it any other way. Buck Gooter is now “ghost motivated” and that ideal is felt through the electronic terror and haunting soundscapes of Ghost Brain, an album that peels between realms of the living and beyond. Turtle and Brett are still collaborating and their union lives on - distorted, disoriented, and uniquely determined.
Following “The Serger,” the album’s scene setting opener, comes lead single “Burning Glass,” a stomper of whirring electronics, harsh shouted vocals, and a danceable groove with mutated drums. It’s built on brute force, an energetic ripper about the struggles of living in our modern times and the circumstances that define human life. At least the uglier aspects of human life. The harrowing burn of industrial sludge parts way for a psychedelic break, an advertisement of sorts for all willing participants about the wonders of being turned to glass. As your senses are increasingly fried - from life, from the song itself - the intensity comes roaring back from the mechanical to Brett’s raspy howl, heaps of electronic clamor in tact. “Burning Glass” meanders between worlds but stays transfixed upon a framework of Ackermann’s bass and the band’s programmed beats. There’s a sample of a voice message from Turtle, buried just beneath the track’s layers, offering some hard fought words from a ghostly transmission.